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From: ok@cs.mu.oz.au (Richard O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: Are "production" programming languages are dinosaurs?
Message-ID: <2309@munnari.oz.au>
Date: 5 Oct 89 10:42:17 GMT
References: <929@scaup.cl.cam.ac.uk> <30@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM> <16160@vail.ICO.ISC.COM>
Sender: news@cs.mu.oz.au
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In article <16160@vail.ICO.ISC.COM>, rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) writes:
: This is a cheap shot.  C has been developed in the natural sequence, namely
: "try it first, then standardize it."  The fact that Ada was standardized
: before there was even an honest working compiler for it--let alone any
: useful experience with the language--is such a massive act of monstrous
: stupidity that even now, years later, I (and most other programming-lang-
: uage folks) have trouble believing it was done that way.

Believe it.  How did you think COBOL was produced? 

The BSI/ISO committee working on a Prolog standard aren't quite that
silly, but they have consistently taken the attitude "never mind what
people happen to be _using_ already, it's what we like or don't like
that counts".  (Would you believe that the error handling construct
is called "block"?)